Kolkata: Third Party Insurers and Administrators (TPA) in Kolkata witnessed the query floods and claims for Covid antibody cocktail therapy after the IRDA nodding insurance regulator on the treatment earlier this month.
Some hospitals have introduced a daily care package for maintenance and a number of claims for this has been registered with TPA in the past two weeks.
Cocktail therapy has been removed from the Covid Essential Treatment Protocol in Bengal.
But the hospital continues to use it, especially in elderly patients with comorbidity.
On January 7, Irda had issued an insurance company suggesting a circle not to reject the claims of cocktail therapy “with the pretext that it was experimental treatment”.
Sujay Mitra, assistant manager in national insurance and part of his medical team, said in recent days the company has received many questions from retail and corporate customers on antibody cocktail therapy.
“We have received and settled a few claims too.
But we think more claims will be done in the next 10-15 days because some claims are rejected before Irda’s advisor.
It will take a few more days to assess the number of such claims correctly,” he said.
According to the established norm, replacement claims can be submitted within 30 days of hospitalization.
Partners say because the treatment of antibody cocktails is largely managed in a daily care package, people generally choose replacing facilities without cash, which takes longer.
“We will now recognize claims without cash also for cocktail therapy, but some people might prefer replacement because of the low number,” he added.
Jyotirday Kundu from the Heritage TPA said there was no clarity on therapy until the first week of January but after Irda circular, there were 200% jumping in claims and more than 500% soared from therapy.
“We have completed several claims,” he said.
C, Raksha TPA’s branch manager in Kolkata, said they had also completed several claims for antibody cocktail care but mostly from corporate customers and the number was not too high.
Bhaskar Nerurkar, Head of Health Claim in General Insurance Bajaj Allianz said they also “supported the method” and added that Covid claims, which had surged in the first two weeks of January in Kolkata, now dropped.
Sanjay Datta, Head, Guarantee and Claims, Icici Lombard said the company had received around 100 covid intimacy under cash mode in the last 20 days of East India, which was 80% -90% from Kolkata.
Alok Roy, Chair of Medica, said that his party had offered therapy to many people but now the number is down.
Barua Rupak, CEO of the Amri Group said the response to therapy in daily care was good.
Cocktail Therapy claims flood insurance in Kolkata
